Going Deep with Aaron Watson

Aaron Watson's show is a forum for having meaningful conversations about the passions, fears and problems of people from all walks of life. Guests talk about entrepreneurship, ultimate frisbee, finance and lifestyle design. Guests include Nathan Chan, Kevin Kelly, Bill Peduto, Morgan Housel, Noah Kagan, Tucker Max, and Barry Ritholtz.

John Fetterman is the current Mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Fetterman earned a bachelor's degree in finance from Albright College in 1991 and a master's degree in Public Policy from Harvard University. He moved to Braddock in 2001 to serve with AmeriCorps and start a non-profit organization, Braddock Redux.

He won the Braddock mayoral election in 2005 by one vote, and was re-elected in 2009 and 2013. As mayor, Fetterman has drawn international attention for trying to revitalize the economy in Braddock, with an article in The New York Times, an appearance on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” and a Levi’s jeans ad. He has made equality, environmental protection, gay rights, immigration and marijuana legalization major campaign issues.

Fetterman is a self-described democratic socialist. He ran for the United States Senate in 2016, but was defeated in the Democratic primary. He is currently running for lieutenant governor.

How do you go from studying journalism in the midwestern United States to revolutionizing the education system of another continent? I don’t know. So I asked Audrey Cheng about her company.

TheMoringa School is enabling a whole generation of high-potential, proactive people passionate about technology to become top mobile and web developers by equipping them with skills to do so. Through top quality teachers and a curated curriculum, the school aims to world-class developers in Africa.

Founder Audrey Cheng has partnered with Hack Reactor, a top Silicon Valley coding school, to develop a world-class intro-to-programming course and an immersive, intensive 19-week program to train top mobile, web and front-end developers.

The World Bank has chosen Moringa School to be their Middle East and Africa location in their study on the effectiveness of coding bootcamps in emerging markets.

Beth Caldwell is an author, speaker, business success strategist and a host for Pittsburgh BizTV Shows. Since 2014, she has been a global instructor with the Steve Harvey Success Institute. She is also a columnist for the Pittsburgh Business Times newspaper and Smart Business magazine, but is best known as the founder of Pittsburgh Professional Women and Leadership Academy for Women.

Recognized by Pittsburgh Magazine as an influential and innovative leader, Beth was named a “40 Under 40″ winner the day before her 40th birthday. In October she was recognized with the Pennsylvania Woman of Courage Award. Beth teaches workshops on leadership, business, and inspiration to audiences worldwide.

Employers are slowly embracing remote work and flexible systems as the deployment of the digital age accelerates. Why are moms being left out of the fun?

Erica Peterson is the Founder of Moms Can: Code, an online community for current and future moms who code. She sits at the nexus of tech talent and employers looking to gain an edge. She’s also inspired quite a few new entrepreneurs.

Erica is passionate about exposing women and children to STEM and was recently selected as a member of The Incline’s Who’s Next: Education class for her work as Founder & Board President of Science Tots.

Ryan is one of the engines stirring the pot of the Pittsburgh nonprofit scene. In addition to incubating young organization through Social Venture Partners, he also actively consults using his experience in sales, partnership development, strategy execution, and sustainable investment analysis.

Prior to CitizenCity, Ryan led U.S. outreach for Humanity in Action–an international human rights organization that cultivates ethical leaders. We discuss his background and his views on what makes a project successful.

Ryan’s Challenges;If you’re an entrepreneur, think about how your core tenets could help solve a community challenge. If you’re in Pittsburgh and want to be more involved in your philanthropy, come join SVP.

In their new book, Elephant in the Brain, Kevin & Robin explore the selfish motives that are driving everything we do. From conversation and consumption, to medicine and religion, evolutionary psychology can explains all of the quirky behaviors we perpetuate through the perspective of self-interest.

Kevin Simler is a writer and software engineer currently living in San Francisco, CA. He writes a popular blog called Melting Asphalt. Kevin joined the Peter Thiel-founded Palantir Technologies in 2006 where he worked for 7 years as an engineer, engineering manager, and product designer.

Robin Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He has a PhD in social science from Caltech, master's in physics and philosophy from U. Chicago, and worked for nine years in artificial intelligence as a research programmer at Lockheed and NASA. He helped pioneer the field of prediction markets and blogs at OvercomingBias.com.

This interview threw me out of my element. What a great way to start the new year. I get pretty uncomfortable with the notion of transhumanism and implanting technology into the body through an elective procedure. Luckily, I got to talk it over with Ryan.

Ryan O’Shea is a spokesperson and advisor for biotechnology startup company Grindhouse Wetware, which is dedicated to creating technology to augment human capabilities. Ryan is also a founder of the Carnegie Mellon University-based artificial intelligence startup Behaivior, which uses wearables and machine learning to predict and intervene in human behaviors to promote positive health outcomes. Behaivior is currently a competitor in the $5 Million IBM Watson AI XPRIZE competition.Ryan has previously worked as a host and producer for the Pittsburgh ABC Television affiliate. He currently hosts the technology and futurism-themed Future Grind podcast and has produced talks around the world on the topic of citizen science, making, and biohacking